The Mandarin Club

by Gerald Felix Warburg

  Mickey flashed on the krytrons business for a moment, but then focused closer to home. “What about Lee? Lee was—”

  “Lee apparently didn’t cancel his seat on that plane. Had a ticket, left for the airport. Somebody may have tipped him off, called him back. We don’t know. And your message canceling with Rachel didn’t get played at TPB until just before the gentleman was juggling a briefcase on his lap in that cab on F Street.”

  “So. . .”

  “The point is, Mickey, somebody thought they stood to gain by eliminating you. You and your boys had better come on home and keep your heads down. And Lee. . .”

  “Lee’s in danger, too, isn’t he?”

  Branko nodded somberly.

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “We want to ask you to take some risks. We will take some unusual risks, too, believe me. But before we commit, I need to make clear there are a few conditions.”

  “Whatever.”

  “At least three—for now.”

  “Anything. Just tell me what to do.”

  “First, when you come home to the U.S., you are home for good. You are out of the China game. Retired. No more Customs runs in Shanghai. No more Telstar sales through Hong Kong. No more dual-use license technology deals.”

  “OK.”

  “You are done with the satellite business. We will help you. I will personally stand by you. But do not become a problem to the Agency, or to me. Ever.”

  “Sure. I don’t even want to see—”

  “Second, when you’re back, it all never happened.”

  “OK.”

  “We never talked. You will be in great danger—and others will be, too—if you can’t keep your goddamn mouth shut. About our theory on the timing device. About the bomb. About possible motivations. About the Agency’s intentions. All of it. I suggest you quit drinking, for starters.”

  “Actually, I’ve already been backing off the hard stuff.”

  Loud organ music interrupted them, the between-innings carnival rising to a crescendo. The crowd clapped in rhythm as Mickey peered disconsolately at the beer he had been nursing.

  “What’s third?”

  Branko was all business once more. The corner of his mouth crinkled in sympathy, the recruiter’s touch as he pulled Mickey in with a final condition.

  “Third is. . . third is Lee.”

  “Lee?” Mickey asked. “You want me to bring him a message?’

  “We want you to bring him to us.”

  “Bring Lee to the U.S.?”

  “Yes. Help him escape to the U.S.”

  Mickey paused before he began to ramble. “You know, Lee is the twins’ godfather. He asked me to keep it a secret. He and Rachel drew the godparent duty. He adores them. Taught them Tai Chi.”

  “We know. Actually, we hope he might, at a minimum, provide a bit of an insurance policy for our rather unusual exit plan for the boys. It’s risky and will have serious consequences.”

  “You’re asking me to recruit him?”

  “No. We want you to convince him to leave—to come to the United States. Convince him any way you can to get out of China. Now. If he feels he cannot leave immediately, try to prevail on him to help us on a couple of critical issues for however long he remains in place.”

  “You expect him to be a mole? Branko, isn’t that, like, suicide?”

  “Mickey, he is already at risk. He’s been at risk for years. The risk has just gotten greater. We are certain he must see that now. He is so stubborn. But he’s smarter than any of us in how he plays the game.”

  “He’s an idealist, Lee is. I said it before. He’s a fucking radical.”

  “He’s a survivor, Mickey. Now he can be a hero, if you can convince him.”

  “Why now?”

  “We need him. There’s a threat to the summit.”

  “You talking about the safety of the president?”

  “Mickey, you really don’t want to—don’t need to—get into this.”

  “Of course I do! How am I going to convince Lee? You must have done stuff with him before. I mean, once upon a time, after Tiananmen, when those Chinese government memos were leaked to the West, all the Politburo internal debates about how to clear the students out of Tiananmen Square? I figured you already had an inside track. I kinda hoped Lee was involved.”

  Branko was fixated on something in the opposite grandstand now. Then he spoke. “Mickey, you really don’t want to go there. Speculation is hazardous in these matters.”

  “But I need to understand what is past if I’m going to convince him his future interests—”

  “If you are going to work with us, you have to accept some things on faith. Sometimes you know only what you need to know. We are asking you to take a message to Lee. A very specific offer.”

  “But if he’s cooperated before—”

  “Deal with the present—the present and the future. Assume that we used to have a procedure in place for getting him out if he wanted to leave. Exfiltration it’s called. He’s not cooperating now. We have no contact with him. The intermediary, the method we used, has been compromised. It is too dangerous for known Agency assets to approach him. We think it will attract less attention if he is just talking with an old friend in town.”

  “Like me.”

  “Exactly. Now listen. There are indications of a concerted effort over there to disrupt the summit. Dangerous developments in Beijing. We only have pieces of it. But it is the type of thing that could conceivably lead us down the road to a major confrontation.”

  “You mean a military confrontation?”

  “I’ve always thought we would end up in a face-off at some point. But that’s just my personal opinion. Right now, we are completely overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we’re a little vulnerable. We require all the eyes and ears in Beijing we can get.”

  “Christ.”

  Branko was locked in now. It was a familiar connection Mickey could sense—it harked back to some earlier time.

  “There’s this little cell in their Army intelligence unit.” Branko laid it out just a bit further as he gazed toward the horizon. “A bunch of impatient intellectuals in love with their own rhetoric. Probably a bunch of their war college boys taking their textbooks way too literally. But they enjoy the patronage of the old generals, who love the deniability.”

  “Intelligence agents, or just analysts?”

  “Probably both. There’s nothing more dangerous than ideologues running operations. We need to get inside. We absolutely must penetrate this cell.”

  “Sounds like they’re a bunch of Ollie Norths.”

  “Exactly. Think of the Byzantine Iran-contra aid schemes—who would ever have believed the NSC would be selling arms to the Ayatollah? Think Gordon Liddy and Haldeman’s Plumbers running amok here at home. That’s all you need to know for now. Lee will already understand the rest—better than you or I ever will.” Branko sighed in resignation. “You’ll just have to swallow the rest of your questions.”

  Mickey nodded slowly. With that assent, a bridge to his old classmate was reconstructed. Mickey Dooley was back on the team. His sins were forgiven. His dispensation had been granted.

  AT THE DELANO

  The Hotel Delano was a fantasy, equal parts Art Deco and Studio 54. It was all froth and fiction, from another world. Rachel knew this. Yet she plunged in, striding purposefully into the lobby—and back in time.

  Cheerful Italian busboys in white linen shorts and desert boots fussed with her bags as she entered the Delano lounge. Before her was a long banner of gauzy muslin cloth wafting like tent flaps in a Bedouin campground. Beckoning down the breezeway were tall white columns and dark angled walls. Lining the walkway were oversized chairs painted gold and piled with overstuffed cushions.

  There was the low murmur of Latin men, tie-less in black cotton suits, speaking into their cell phones. There was a constant clicking of ladies’ heels, impossibly tall stilettoes, with leather straps reaching up sc
ulpted calves. The women ignored her with brazen disdain. But she was captivated as she stood in her rumpled business dress, still bearing her convention nametag with one of those annoying smiley faces: “HI! I’M: Rachel!”

  In the early evening air there were fruity scents, aftershave, and perfumed cigarettes. The smell of curried hors d’oeuvres was from the terrace ahead. She stood at the precipice now, gazing down across the whimsy of games and bungalows, and the over-spilling water that flowed down to the beach. She followed the path beckoning her into the palms.

  As she proceeded through the lawn along the flagstone, she encountered an enormous pool extending a foot or two above her, elevated like some in-ground hot tub, splashing down around her while a swimmer carved laps. Two women sat perched at a metal table set in a thin pond of water at the shallow end. One smoked carefully, exhaling into the angled rays of sunlight. The other toyed at the water with chartreuse toenails. Both were defiantly bare-breasted, chatting as they sucked shrimp dipped in cocktail sauce.

  Rachel, the small-town girl, began to giggle. She rolled her hand, still stiff from the long journey, in the pool. She had been gripping the wheel too tightly, for too long. Now she would let go, lolling her wet fingers in the milky tropical air.

  She didn’t care if she was the last one to Ian Schrager’s party at Miami’s South Beach, years after the tourists had rediscovered the neighborhood, long after the arrival of chain restaurants and fashion photo shoots. This weekend in May, she had finally fled the twin responsibilities of senior executive and domestic engineer, and landed at “The Coolest Hotel in America.” She was determined to enjoy it.

  The impulse had come quickly. She had been standing in an Orlando karaoke bar after lunchtime with a bunch of old guys in seersucker suits at the convention of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, when she reached her limit. It was frightening in its swiftness, this realization. Her sense of the absurd was making her dangerous, though she’d been drinking only cranberry juice. As she wise-cracked cynically with the guys, she felt trouble ahead. Her sense of self-preservation helped her decide to move on.

  It was only Thursday. Barry had Jamie through the weekend. The boys were fine, off reliving the Civil War at Antietam and Gettysburg. Jamie probably had on a full Union Army uniform by now. She’d already done her Washington wrap-up talk for the CMA panel, and the rest of the program was light on substance.

  So she’d fled, racing east in her rental car, making the Atlantic coastline before three o’clock, rolling south down I-95, surfing through the FM dial for just the right decade of oldies.

  She was chasing some moment of frivolity she had missed during all those years of expectations—hers and others’. She had grown up too soon, entering the career track and marriage at twenty-one. All those nights out with clients, heavy with obligation, juggling the soccer car pool and PTA commitments. All the times she’d put the needs and desires of somebody else first. She was escaping, off the radar screen for forty-eight hours, to be anonymous and irresponsible, a teenager once more.

  “I feel like I’m time traveling,” she teased Alexander over the phone when she called him later from her room. “It’s 1982. I expect to find John Travolta in that white suit, Don Johnson and Tubbs in tow.”

  “I call it stolen time,” Alexander explained. “Living outside the calendar.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Sure. I used to tell the bureau I was leaving Tokyo on a Friday, and be back in the States on Monday. But I’d leave Japan Wednesday night, and just fly away somewhere. Disappear. Find a place to hike, sleep, read books—you know, discuss the meaning of life with strangers.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “Oh, someplace where I had no past. Little town called Waimea above the Kona coast of Hawaii. Phuket, before the tsunami. Anyplace where time moved with less urgency.”

  “Well, time has stopped here at the Hotel Delano, that’s for sure. It’s all Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees.”

  “Nope.” He yawned. “More like the capital of Latin America.”

  “You sound sleepy.”

  “I dozed off. Just finished a big nuclear nonproliferation story, a big scoop. Resting on my laurels.”

  In the silence, she imagined awakening next to him. “So, what did you dream about during your nap?”

  “Water. It was a great dream. I was at the seashore.”

  “Ocean dreams. Like mine! My mother always told me water dreams were about cleansing.”

  “Cleansing?”

  “She was heavy into the Church, you know. Big-time Lutheran. I always thought that meant she was washing away guilt. But my analyst says water dreams are about sensuality. . . So, did you go in?”

  “Go in?”

  “The water. Did you take the plunge?”

  “Yeah. Of course I did.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What?” Alexander sat up, turning down a suddenly too loud saxophone riff on the CD player. “You think I’m repressed?”

  “Of course you are,” she said, laughing. “But maybe it’s just a phase.”

  “Who was it I confessed to the other night that I’m the only guy I know who admits to still enjoying the occasional joint?”

  “Which proves my point. You get high to escape. It’s a crutch.”

  “Actually, I get high because I enjoy it. Intensifies my insights. Helps me see beyond the mundane.”

  “Naughty boy. No security clearance for you.”

  “Very socially unacceptable, I know. It’s much more politically correct to entrust our security to the martini-drinking, caffeine-swilling guys at the Pentagon. Or the dry drunk who stumbled into the Baghdad quagmire.”

  “We’re a little defensive, aren’t we? You been reading one of your whiny liberal columnists again?”

  “And how many daiquiris have you had, young lady?”

  “Only two. Well, maybe a third. I’m in recovery, indulging my senses. And my skin is still tingly all over. It’s like I’ve got hives or something.”

  “Maybe it’s the humidity.”

  “I’m refusing to put any clothes on. I like the breeze.”

  “You’re flirting with me, Rachel Paulson. After all these years, what do you do to me? You flirt.”

  “You noticed!” said Rachel in a congratulatory tone. “I’ve decided that you are my summer project. Get you to shed your armor.”

  “You sound like Mickey Dooley. He used to say he always tried to get laid on the first date. To get the ladies to peel off all their social armor. Said it saved time.”

  “Right.”

  “No, really. He had these elaborate theories about sex. He could be very articulate on the subject. He used to say that sex was just a short-cut in relationships, to cut to the chase, to see how a potential companion gave and received.”

  “Mickey Dooley gave you sex tips? Now that’s a frightening thought. I mean, he could sure play the Macho Man at times. Probably was all an act, come to think of it.”

  “Actually, if I recall, he was rather sweet on you.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m the godmother of his boys. I was like his sister!”

  “And I was like a brother.”

  “You all were like my brothers.”

  “You were always such a good sport.”

  “Such a good girl.”

  “I always thought you were wiser than us, Rachel—about people, I mean.”

  “But I was ‘Barry’s girl.’”

  “Made things safe.”

  “Safe. Story of my life.” Rachel sighed. The windows were open as the evening air moved by, the billowing curtains letting in shafts of neon from across the avenue.

  “It’s fun here,” she continued. “There’s great imagination in the design, all geometric. Long white lines set off by an obelisk or a triangle. They’ve put hammocks and chessboards and mirrors on the grass walk. Just for the hell of it. And the women! Alexander, you would be inspired!”

  “They’
re probably all models, Rachel. Lot of silicone and bulimia there.”

  “They’re all these incredible shapes and flavors. The food on Lincoln Road I had tonight was amazing. Some blend of Cuban and French, grilled with rich fruity sauces. And the people watching! Even I like looking. There are just so many different textures and colors.”

  “So the Wyoming girl is finally making the South Beach scene.”

  “I’m lying on the bed naked in an all-white room.” Her voice slowed suggestively. “The only bit of color is this Granny Smith apple they put on a pedestal.”

  “You are naughty,” he said with a laugh. “Where the hell is your husband?”

  “Yeah. Where the hell is he? Oh, Alexander, I’m not good at this. There I was, watching all these men in the lobby bar. And you know what sucks? They’re all looking at each other! Even in the little Delano gift shop, all the skin magazines have male models.”

  “Since when does a married woman go ogling a bunch of—”

  “I’m not exactly a. . .”

  “Not what?”

  “Well. . . sort of.”

  “What do you mean, sort of?”

  “Sort of not married. Separated. I filed for divorce. Last week. Barry’s moving out.”

  “Rachel! Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I just figured it was something I had to do on my own. I’ve got too many things I still want to do, and I know I’ve been living a lie.”

  “I know things were screwed up. But you should have told some—”

  “Don’t you understand? All these years, I’ve felt not right, like everything was a test and I never quite made the grade. Well, I finally figured it out. It wasn’t about me, about my own self-expectations. It was all about Barry. Barry never liked himself enough to be happy. It was all about Barry. It always was.”

  “So. . . what now?”

  “So, now I’m free,” she said. “And now I’m going to eat this goddamn apple.”